Pocahontas and Her Role Transferred to America Today

This piece of art relates back to what I talked about in my last blog.

http://moodle.stolaf.edu/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=149928

     Most of the art that we are looking at for Wednesday portrays Pocahontas as either a welcoming, open person, or a person who is a bridge to the gap between Indians and the Europeans.   Pocahontas was a bridge between the gap of these two different cultures because she was willing to belong to both groups of people.  She stands as a symbol of peace and as a peacemaker between two different cultures who did not always agree on certain issues.
    This relates strongly to what it means to be American and living in America.  Citizens are constantly finding reasons why they do or do not like a culture that is different from our own.  With all the immigrants coming into America, it brings about a lot of controversy about whether or not we should let this happen.  When it comes down to it though,  Americans want peace, and so we are able to force ourselves to be peacemakers with those who are different from us.  We accept people and befriend people who are from different cultures, we become a bridge between the gap of one culture to another.  This is very similar to Pocahontas's role in the the early colonization years.  She was a symbol of a "truce" between two very different groups of people, and that is exactly what we as Americans are working on in our foreign affairs - to become the peacemaker between two very different groups of individuals.  It is part of the American Dream to give everyone a chance to succeed. And by bridging this gap of different cultures, we start to make that happen.